Team manager

Team management - Wikipedia

Team management is the ability of an individual or an organization to administer and coordinate a group of individuals to perform a task. Team management involves teamwork, communication, objective setting and performance appraisals. Moreover, team management is the capability to identify problems and resolve conflicts within a team. There are various methods and leadership styles a team manager can take to increase personnel productivity and build an effective team.[1]

Elements of a healthy and successful team[edit]

Cohesive leadership[edit]

In any functional team, cohesion amongst team leaders and decision makers is vital. Cohesive leadership means that team leaders are acting together as a unit and making decisions as a leadership team instead of each branching off into their own work and operating individually. This will ensure that the team will be steered in one direction instead of multiple due to team leaders not being concise and consistent with their instructions. Cohesive leadership will require team leaders to have strong communication skills. [2]

Effective communication[edit]

There must be an effective channel of communication from the top to the bottom of the chain of command and vice versa. An effective channel of communication will allow messages to be transferred accurately without delay to the intended recipient, this will speed up decision making processes and the operations of the team. Furthermore, effective communication will increase the flexibility of an organisation and cause it to be less susceptible to changes in the external environment; as a faster decision making process will allow organisations a longer time period to adapt to the changes and execute contingency plans.[2]

Common goal[edit]

When team members first come together they will all have different ideas, however the key to a successful team is the alignment of objectives within the team. It is essential that the team leader sets a common goal the entire team is willing to pursue. This way, all the team members will put in effort in order to attain the goal. If there is not a common goal, team members who disagree with the objective in hand will feel reluctant to utilise their full effort, leading to failure to achieve the goal. In other cases, team members might divert themselves to other tasks due to a lack of belief or interest in the goal.[3]

Defined team roles and responsibilities[edit]

Poorly defined roles is often the biggest obstacle to a successful Team.[4] If team members are unclear of what their role is, their contributions towards the team will be minimal, therefore it is the team leader’s duty to outline the roles and responsibilities of each individual within the team and ensure that the team is working together as an integral unit.

In a successful team, a team leader will first evaluate the mission of the team to understand what is needed to accomplish the task. Then, they will identify the strengths and weaknesses of their team members and assign roles accordingly. Lastly, they must ensure that all team members know what each other’s responsibilities are to avoid confusion and to create an effective channel of communication.[5]

Methods of team management[edit]

"Command and Control"[edit]

The method “Command and Control” as an approach to team management is based on the concept of military management. “Command and Control” was a commonly used system in the private sector during the 20th century.[6] In this method, the team leader instructs their team members to complete a task and if they refuse, they will yell or punish them until they no longer refuse and comply with the instructions. The team leader has absolute authority and utilises an autocratic leadership style.There are considerable drawbacks to this team management method. Firstly, the team morale will be lowered due to team members being constantly belittled by the team leader at the slightest mistake; punishments will also lead to a lack of confidence in team members resulting in poor performance. Second, in modern organisations roles are often specialised, therefore managers will require the expertise of the employee, elevating the value of the employee. Implementing the “Command and Control” team management method will lead to a high rate of employee turnover. In addition, in large organisations managers don’t have the time to provide instructions to all employees and continuously monitor them, this will impede an organisations performance as managers are not spending time on their core responsibilities.[7]

"Engage and Create"[edit]

Due to the limitations and ineffectiveness of “Command and Control”, managers developed an alternative management strategy known as “Engage and Create”. In this method team members are encouraged to participate in discussions and contribute. Furthermore, they are advised to engage with other team members to build a stronger sense of teamwork and unity. This will lead to increased productivity and accountability of each team member, driving the team towards success.[6]

"Econ 101"[edit]

In the “Econ 101” method of team management, the team leader makes the baseline assumption that all team members are motivated by reward in the form of money, and that the best way to manage the team is to provide financial rewards for performance and issue punishments for failure. This method of team management uses material gains in the place of intrinsic motivation to drive team members. This is similar to Taylor’s theory of Scientific Management where he claims the main form of motivation for employees is money.[8][9] The main drawback of this method is that it does not take into account other forms of motivation besides money such as personal satisfaction and ambition. Moreover, by using reward and punishment as a method of team management it can cause demotivation as everyone is motivated by different factors and there is no one way to satisfy all team members, the negative effect is further compounded by punishment leading to demoralisation and lost of confidence.[7]

Problems in team management[edit]

Absence of trust[edit]

In Patrick Lencioni’s book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, the absence of vulnerability-based trust – where team members are comfortable being vulnerable with each other, trust each other to help when asking for guidance, and are willing to admit their mistakes – within a team is detrimental to a team. Team leaders have to assist each other when they are vulnerable and also allow team members to see their vulnerable side, which is contradictory to the orthodox belief. If a team lacks vulnerability based trust, team members will not be willing to share ideas or acknowledge their faults due to the fear of being exposed as incompetent, leading to a lack of communication and the hindering of the team.[10][11][12]

Fear of conflict[edit]

Contrary to the general belief, conflict is a positive element in a team as it drives discussion. The fear of conflict is the fear of team members to argue with one another and the fear of disagreeing with the team leader. If team members hold back and are afraid of confronting the leader or their teammates, then the concept of a team is non-existent because there is only one person who contributes and no new ideas are generated from discussions.[10]

The fear of conflict in a team stems from an absence of trust, more specifically vulnerability based trust. If team members are afraid to be vulnerable in front of one another, disputes can be manipulative and a means to overthrow and shame the other team member. However, if team members trust each other and are comfortable being vulnerable in front of one another, then debates can be a pursuit of a better and more effective method to achieve a task.[10][11][12]

Lack of commitment[edit]

When team members don’t provide input on a decision, it shows that they do not agree or approve of the decision, leading to a halt in team activity and progress. Furthermore when team members don’t express their opinions, views and potential ideas are lost, hurting the project and the company.[10][12]

Avoidance of accountability[edit]

The avoidance of accountability in a team is the failure of team members to be accountable for the consequences of their actions. When team members do not commit to a decision, they will be unwilling to take responsibility for the outcomes of the decision.[10]

In addition, if a lack of trust exists within the team then there will be an absence of peer to peer accountability; team members will not feel accountable towards their team members and hence will not put effort into their tasks. The team must trust and hold each other responsible so that the intention will always be for the benefit of the team and for the team to succeed.[10]

Team leaders who are afraid of confrontation might avoid holding team members accountable when in fact they have made a mistake. Team leaders must develop the confidence to hold team members accountable so that they will feel the sense of responsibility and entitlement to the team, and learn from their mistakes. If not, then errors will not be corrected and might lead to worse problems, causing a defective team.[10][12][13]

Inattention to results[edit]

If team leaders and team members do not hold each other accountable then they will not be concerned about the outcome of the team and whether they have achieved their goal, as they do not have a drive to obtain great results. Inattention to results causes a loss of purpose and brings into question the existence of the team.[10]

Resolving problems through team management[edit]

Building trust[edit]

An approach to resolving fundamental trust problems within teams is to build trust amongst team members. A team leader can build trust by persuading team members to ask questions and seek guidance from other team members, so that they are more familiar and comfortable in being vulnerable with one another, questions such as “May you teach me how to do this” or “You are better than me at this”. However, in order to achieve vulnerability based trust within the team the team leader must be vulnerable first, if the team leader is unwilling to be vulnerable, nobody else in the team will be willing to follow.[10]

Appraisals[edit]

Appraisals can be a way for team members to provide feedback to one another or for team members to provide advice to the leader. This will allow individual members of the team to reflect on their performance and aim to do better by amending their mistakes; furthermore appraisals create an environment where the chain of command is non-existent and team members can be honest towards one another. This is effective in a way that the team can provide progressive feedback towards other members and can advise the leader on how he or she can improve their leadership. After each member reads their appraisals, they will understand how they can strive to improve, benefitting the team in reaching its objectives. The commonly used forms of appraisals are performance appraisals, peer appraisals and 360 degree feedback.[14]

Team building activities[edit]

Team-building activities are a series of simple exercises involving teamwork and communication. The main objectives of team building activities are to increase the trust amongst team members and allow team members to better understand one another. When choosing or designing team building activities it is best to determine if your team needs an event or an experience. Generally an event is fun, quick and easily done by non-professionals. Team building experiences provide richer, more meaningful results. Experiences should be facilitated by a professional on an annual basis for teams that are growing, or changing.

Back to Back Drawing[edit]

Back to back drawing is a team building activity where two members of a team sit back to back. One member is given a picture while the other is given a blank piece of paper. The member with the picture has to describe to the other member what the picture includes and the other member has to sketch what is described. At the end of the game, both members compare the picture and the drawing to see how similar they are. This game aims to improve verbal communication between team members.

The Human Knot[edit]

The human knot is a team building activity where team members stand in a circle and grab hold of the hands of other participants that are not immediately next to them. The objective is to unravel the circle of entangled hands. This game, through the physical touch between team members, will allow them to feel more comfortable with each other. Furthermore, this game can improve the verbal and physical communication between team members and enable the team to identify which communication process is the most effective within the team.[15]

Leadership styles in team management[edit]

Autocratic[edit]

Autocratic leaders make their own decisions without consulting employees or other team members. They hold absolute authority over the team and team members are expected to obey and comply with the decision that is made by the leader. Autocratic leaders use one way communication, which is that they will instruct team members without expecting feedback in return. The benefit of this leadership style is that decisions can be made quickly, especially if the team is in crisis, considering the views of all team members will be time consuming and impractical. However, this can lead to over dependency on the team leader as all decisions are made by him or her and it can also lead to a low team morale as the input of team members are not valued.[16][17]

Democratic[edit]

Democratic leaders will consult with employees before proceeding to make a decision. Democratic leaders will take on a two way communication approach where team members can provide input and voice out their opinions aside from the team leader issuing instructions. Team leaders who take on this leadership style will require excellent communication skills to express to the team members what is expected of them and to respond to and understand their concerns. The benefit of this leadership style is that team members will feel more valued, leading to an overall increase in productivity in the team. However, a drawback is that since employees have a greater involvement in decision making it might slow down the decision making process.[17][18]

Laissez-Faire[edit]

Laissez faire is a leadership style where the team leader will allow the team members to carry out their duties on their own and at their own pace. There is little to no management and authority implemented by the team leader. This style of leadership is applicable to product design or advertising teams where flexibility and freedom provides a more suitable environment to stimulate creativity and is expected to generate positive results. The benefit of this leadership style is that team members who do not like to be controlled and closely monitored can prosper and fulfil their potential as this is the environment in which they function best. The limitation of laissez faire is that team members might make poor judgements due to a lack of supervision and they might not work as hard because of the absence of a superior.[17]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

^ Business Dictionary. Team Management. [Online]. [Accessed 15 October 2014]. Available from:http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/team-management.html

^ a b IESE Business School. 2011. Patrick Lencioni: The Four Traits of Healthy Teams. [Online]. [Accessed 15 October 2014]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KxJop0A0vA

^ a b Plotczyk, P.; Murphy, S. Command and Control is OUT! Create and Engage is IN! [Online]. [Accessed 15 October 2014]. Available from:http://www.wsa-intl.com/278-this-month-s-articles/command--control-is-out-engage-create-is-in/

^ a b c d e f g h i Lencioni, P. 2002. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. John Wiley & Sons.

^ a b Slideshare. 2012. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.[Online]. [Accessed 15 October 2014]. Available from:http://www.slideshare.net/peterdschwartz/the-five-dysfunctions-of-a-team-by-patrick-lencioni-slides

Asian Official Development Assistance (ODA) Conference, 24-28 July 2007 Manila, Philippines: International development team manager attended the conference which was co-hosted by Global Call Against Poverty-Asia and the Philippines ODA Watch.

Team Management Skills - Team Management Training from MindTools.com

So you've just got a new job as a manager. Congratulations! Or maybe you've just been given the task of pulling a new team together. What a challenge!

Either way, whether your team exists already or it's your responsibility to create it, what do you do next?

This article looks at some of the key things that team managers need to do if their team is to thrive and succeed. These range from choosing the right people and deciding who does what, to communicating with, developing and motivating people. It also covers some of the most common pitfalls to be avoided.

First Things First

But before that, some definitions are useful. What is management, exactly? And how does it differ from leadership?

A good starting point is the Warren G Bennis quote that "Leaders are people who do the right things; managers are people who do things right." Leadership involves creating a compelling vision of the future, communicating that vision, and helping people understand and commit to it. Managers, on the other hand, are responsible for ensuring that the vision is implemented efficiently and successfully.

Of course, these two roles overlap – and, to be fully effective, you need to fulfill both roles. However, the focus of this article is on the specific skills and responsibilities of managers, and on the tools available to them. After all, there's no point energizing people to work towards a fabulous vision of the future, only to fall flat on your face when it comes to implementation.

The Importance of Delegation

The top priority for team managers is delegation . No matter how skilled you are, there's only so much that you can achieve working on your own. With a team behind you, you can achieve so much more: that's why it's so important that you delegate effectively!

Successful delegation starts with matching people and tasks, so you first need to explain what your team's role and goals are. A good way of doing this is to put together a team charter , which sets out the purpose of the team and how it will work. Not only does this help you get your team off to a great start, it can also be useful for bringing the team back on track if it's veering off course.

Only then will you be in a position to think about the skills, experience and competencies within your team, and start matching people to tasks. Read our article on task allocation for more on how to do this, and to find out how to deal with real-world challenges, such as managing the gaps between team members' skill sets.

Motivating Your Team

Another key duty you have as a manager is to motivate team members.

Our article on Theory X and Theory Y explains two very different approaches to motivation, which depend on the fundamental assumptions that you make about the people who work for you. If you believe that they're intrinsically lazy, you believe in Theory X, while if you believe that most are happy and willing to work, you'll tend towards Theory Y. Make sure that you fully understand these theories – they will fundamentally affect your success in motivating people.

You can find out much more about motivation with our quiz How Good Are Your Motivation Skills?

This helps you learn a number of core approaches to motivation – Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory , McClelland's Human Motivation Theory and Sirota's Three Factor Theory are particularly useful.

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Whatever approach you prefer to adopt, you also need to bear in mind that different people have different needs when it comes to motivation. Some individuals are highly self-motivated, while others will under-perform without managerial input. Use our article on Pygmalion Motivation to understand how to manage these different groups of people.

Developing Your Team

Teams are made up of individuals who have different outlooks and abilities, and are at different stages of their careers. Some may find that the tasks you've allocated to them are challenging, and they may need support. Others may be "old hands" at what they're doing, and may be looking for opportunities to stretch their skills. Either way, it's your responsibility to develop all of your people.

Your skills in this aspect of management will define your long-term success as a manager. If you can help team members to become better at what they do, you'll be a manager who people aspire to work for, and you'll make a great contribution to your organization, too.

The most effective way of developing your people is to ensure that you give regular feedback to members of your team. Many of us are nervous of giving feedback, especially when it has to be negative. However, if you give and receive feedback regularly, everyone's performance will improve.

Beyond this, our article on Understanding Developmental Needs will help you develop individual team members, so that they can perform at their best.

Tip:

If you have to bring a substantial number of new people into your team, read our article on forming, storming, norming and performing to learn about the stages you can expect your team to go through. You can do a lot to help your people through this process!

Communicating and Working With Your Team – and With Others

Communication skills are essential for success in almost any role, but there are particular skills and techniques that you'll use more as a manager than you did as a regular worker. These fall under two headings: communicating with team members, and communicating with people outside your team. We'll look at each in turn.

Communicating With People in Your Team

As a team manager, you're likely to be chairing regular sessions as well as one-off meetings. Meeting of all kinds, and regular ones in particular, are notorious for wasting people's time, so it's well worth mastering the skill of running effective meetings .

Many meetings include brainstorming sessions. As a team manager, you'll often have to facilitate these, so you'll need to be comfortable with doing this. There's more to this than simply coming up with creative ideas, as you do when you're just a regular participant in such a session: read our article to find out how to run brainstorming sessions. Make sure that you understand where they can go wrong, and what you can do to avoid this.

Active listening is another important skill for managers – and others – to master. When you're in charge, it can be easy to think that you know what others are going to say, or that listening is less important, because you've thought of a solution anyway.

Don't fall into this trap. Most good managers are active listeners: it helps them detect problems early (while they're still easy to deal with), avoid costly misunderstandings, and build trust within their teams.

Communicating With People Outside Your Team

Your boss is probably the most important person you need to communicate with. Take time to understand fully what your boss wants from you and your team – if you know exactly what she likes, and how she prefers this to be delivered, you'll be better able to meet with her approval.

Don't be afraid to ask your boss to coach or mentor you: you can usually learn a lot from him, but he may not be proactive about offering this. If you're approaching your boss for advice, make sure you've thought things through as far as you can. Introduce the subject with a summary of your thinking, and then say where you need help.

Also, as a manager, part of your job is to look after your team and protect it from unreasonable pressure. Learn skills like assertiveness and win-win negotiation , so that you can either turn work away, or negotiate additional resources.

Another part of your job is to manage the way that your team interacts with other groups. Use stakeholder analysis to identify the groups that you need to deal with. Then talk to these people to find out what they want from you, and what they can do to help you.

Managing Discipline

However much you hope that you won't have to do it, there comes a time in most managers' careers when they have to discipline an employee. Discipline may be subtly different from basic feedback, because it doesn't always relate specifically to the employee's work. You can give feedback on their phone manner, for example, but handling problems with timekeeping or personal grooming can need a different approach.

Obvious breaches of the law or of company policy are easy to identify and deal with. But what of other situations? On one hand you don't want to seem petty. On the other hand, you can't let things go that should be dealt with.

Use these rules-of-thumb to decide whether you need to take action. If the answer to any is yes, then you need to arrange a time to speak to the employee in private.

Does the issue affect the quality of the employee's deliverable to the client (internal or external)?

A graphic designer regularly gets in to work late, although he stays late to make up for this. Customers are sometimes frustrated by not being able to get through to him at the start of the day, particularly when he's working on rush jobs.

Does the issue adversely impact the cohesiveness of the team?

Individual designers tend to work on their own projects, with few meetings between design team members, so cohesiveness is not impacted. However people are noticing his lack of punctuality, and other people's timekeeping is beginning to slip.

Does the issue unnecessarily undermine the interests of other individuals in the team?

The designer sitting next to the latecomer is unhappy that she has to field calls from clients before he reaches the office, and is unable to give a firm answer to the question "When will he be in?"

In this situation, the design team manager decides to speak to the latecomer because of the impact on his co-worker. They agree that coming in to work late is not a problem (he has a long commute, with heavy traffic en route) but that he will commit to being in by 9.30 a.m. every day to reduce the number of calls his co-worker has to field, and also give her a fixed time to give clients. He will work late to make up time, and will take on a task she doesn't like to make up for her extra phone handling.

When you are faced with a potential discipline issue, take time to gather information about the situation, decide what you're going to do, and act. Discipline issues rarely go away of their own accord, and they usually get worse, often causing considerable resentment amongst other team members.

Traps to Avoid

There are a number of common mistakes that new managers tend to make. Take care to avoid them!

These are:

Thinking that you can rely on your existing job knowledge and technical skills to succeed as a manager. It is essential that you take the time to develop good management and people skills as well – these can be more important than your technical skills!

Failing to consult regularly with your boss, in a misguided attempt to show that you can cope on your own.

Approaching your boss without having thought a problem through, and without having considered how the problem could be solved.

Embarrassing your boss, or letting her get a nasty surprise. Follow the "no surprises" rule.

Doing anything that requires your boss to defend you to others. This can cause your boss to "lose face" with his peers and superiors, and it makes it look as if his team is out of control.

Failing to talk to your customers (whether internal or external) about what they want from yourself and your team.

Using your authority inappropriately – make sure that everything you ask people to do is in the interests of the organization.

Many of these points sound obvious, however it's incredibly easy to make these mistakes in the rush of everyday managerial life.

Key Points

When you move from being a worker to a line manager, you need to develop a new set of skills, and make use of new tools and techniques. These will help you with the key management activities of organizing, motivating, developing and communicating with your team.

Above all, learn how to delegate effectively. However, also learn how to motivate people, develop team members, communicate effectively with people inside and outside your team, and manage discipline effectively.

And make sure that you avoid the mistakes that many new managers make!

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Swimming Management Software & Swim Club Management Solutions

Overview

Team Manager for Swimming provides coaches, parents and administrators with easy-to-use swim club software. The system is designed to completely automate the administration and performance tracking for teams at all levels of competition. Organize your team with less stress and more resources at the tips of your fins.

Team Manager makes running a team simple with functionality that allows you to:

Track top times (best or overall) by event or swimmer

Integrate workout management

Record team / pool / league records and time standards

Pull reports and print labels for meet entries

View and print rosters with personal details and attendance lists

Chart performance graphs

Print ribbon awards and improvement labels

Pick "Best Relays"

Transport split sheets to meets

Export best times, meet results and entries, records, and more to Team Stats Online

View length of time a swimmer has been on your team

Keep tabs on athletes that haven’t registered yet for an upcoming meet

Sync up foreign swimmer declarations directly with Meet Manager

With Team Manager, entering a meet is easy and eliminates the tedious data entry that is normally necessary. Just specify an entry qualification time (if any) and Team Manager will list all eligible swimmers and the events their best times qualify them for. From there, simply click on the events to be participated in by each swimmer! It's easy, fast and accurate. Team Manager will export these meet entries for the meet host.

Never again have a delay with publishing meet results-results can be entered just as quickly and efficiently. Select the event and Team Manager will display all eligible swimmers for that event. Click on a swimmers name and enter his / her swim time (optionally enter splits, stroke rate, place and points). Or use Team Manager to import meet results from the meet host! It's easy.

You will have more insight into each swimmer on your team than ever before with the robust reporting tools offered by Team Manager. Access hundreds of reports including Best Times, Split Sheets, Meet Eligibility, Meet Results, Mailing & Award Labels, Rosters, Records and Time Standards, Meet Entries, Meet Entry Fee Reports and many, many more.

Click here for Product License Options for Team Manager for Swimming

Features

Team Manager 8.0 New!

The new Team Manager has been released! TM 8.0 launched on December 15, 2015 with a splash, giving you more resources, more tools and more functionality than ever before. The latest version of our system is the most advanced and exciting product we have ever released and is packed with over 20 NEW features.

Team MANANGER 8.0 modules include:

WORKOUT Manager

With WORKOUT Manager, coaches can save time and stay organized as they put their athletes through the paces. When a coach creates workouts and predicts training paces, WORKOUT Manager will pull athlete rosters and best times directly from Team Manager.

Pull performance reports on log books, weekly yardage, attendance percentages, energy system percentages, stress level totals and more. Additionally, the roster and best time reports are instantly available to you in Team Manager, giving you an even more comprehensive overview of your athletes.

Why is this important? Most coaches are responsible for 8 to 24 swimmers in anywhere from 2 to 4 lanes in each session; it is imperative that a coach be able to create workouts for each lane quickly and easily. A running timeline, total yardage and the total stress level is shown to enable you to get the maximum from a workout. In addition, you can see the amount of each stroke and the amount of each energy system being designed in. Post-workout, all swimmers who participated will have their attendance and yardage statistics automatically updated in the system.

Note that if you do not purchase the WORKOUT Manager option, you can still check it out using your basic Team Manager product.

Training

Predict training paces using results from your T-30 sets. Here's how:

Produce six custom pace charts for each swimmer (known as Pink, Red and Blue charts).

Predict paces in other strokes by using your freestyle T-30 with a modified T-30 protocol.

Record the results of any test set you desire, such as 5 x 100 on 5 minutes.

Record heart rate and comments with each test set. (Some test sets provide meet time predictions.)

Generate test set and training pace reports and download them into easy-to-read spreadsheets.

Pace Clock

Make your workouts easier to follow! Instantly download up to 10 workouts (one per lane) from WORKOUT Manager to either the Colorado Time Systems 4 or 5 console running a CTS pace clock program or to the Daktronics OmniSport 6000 with its pace clock program. The download can handle up to 64 sets per lane and provides the number of repeats per set, intervals for each set and the rest period after each set.

Team Stats Online (TSO)

Stop fielding questions from anxious parents and swimmers and give them the answers they want, when they want them! Athletes and parents will have online access to a searchable database of meet results and rankings. TSO is included FREE with all TM 8.0 packages for the life the product.

Online Demo

Please Click Here to go to our Team Stats Online web page and pick the "A Demo for Team Stats Online" Swim Team and check out the various menu selections. For example, choose Athletes and then double click on Times next to an athlete to show that swimmer's Best Time in every event. Click on Entries and pick a meet and Team Stats Online will show all the entries that have been declared for that meet.

Try it FREE with TM 8.0

Start Team Manager and click on the TSO icon at the top of the main menu to get started. Filter the information you want uploaded to the web, place the link on your team's web site, and contact your parents and swimmers to begin enjoying an easy to use searchable database of your team's meet results, meet entries, rankings, and records.

Team Connect Online (TCO)

With TCO, multiple users can access your TM database simultaneously. Get more work done faster, and get more people the most up-to-date information. TCO is included FREE with all TM 8.0 packages for the life of the product.

Packages

Team Manager 8.0 Packages:

How can you get the new TM 8.0? It's easy! Just choose from three packages:

Workout Manager Pace Clock Feature - Download up to 10 workouts (1 per lane) from TM directly to the CTS 4,5, or 6 or the Daktronics 6000 or 2000 timing consoles.

When you upgrade to TM 8.0, you will automatically be upgraded to the package consistent with the options you already have in your current Team Manager product. For example, if you already have the Record Match/Time Standard option, when you upgrade to TM 8.0, you will automatically receive the Silver Package that includes all 6 standard options plus the Pro option. If you have one of the Workout Manager options, when you upgrade, you will automatically receive the Gold package that includes all the standard options as well as all three of the Workout Manager options. And in both of these examples, you will automatically receive FREE subscriptions for both Team Stats Online and Team Connect Online for the life of the product.

* Please note that Tech Support for TM 6.0 will not be available after July 15, 2012.

Team Manager Lite

TM Lite makes it easy for a meet host to obtain entries from the teams entering a meet. TM Lite is provided FREE to a meet host using Meet Manager to distribute ONLY to the teams entering the meet and those teams then send their entries to the host by CD or via email. The meet host can distribute TM Lite CDs directly to team or each team can download TM Lite from the HY-TEK website. Please note that TM Lite supports up to 100 swimmers per team.

TM Lite has all of the basic TM functionality with the following features enabled:

Standard set-up and options

Entry for teams, athletes, relays, meets and browsers

Specification of meet entry custom times by event or name

Import of meet events from a Meet Manager database

Export of meet entries to send to the meet host by CD or via email

Meet Entry Reporting

Click here to view the TM Lite Instructions

Customers

HY-TEK Team Manager is the number 1 choice in team management software for thousands of swim teams. Some of the organizations that use Team Manager to run their team include:

Team Manager for Swimming

Barker Aquatic Swim Club

Chanhassen High School

Columbia University

Bengal Tiger Aquatic Club

Island Wahoos

Jersey Swimming Club

Monta Vista High School

Quickwater Swim Club

River Town Aquatics

Shaker Sharks

Swim Atlanta

Maui Gold Swim Team

Palmer Stripers Swim Team

Rapid City Racers Swim Club

Rappahannock Raiders Swim Club

Vincennes Swim Team

CSRC Stingrays Swim Team

East Ridge High School

Green County YMCA

Mandarin High School

Menomonie Area Aquatics Club

New Jersey Wave

Ridgedale YMCA

Rollingwood Swim Team

Romeo Dolphins

Southern Cross Dragons Swim Team

University of Cincinnati

UNLV Swimming

Fox Valley Swim Team

Lakenheath Swim Club

Northern Free State Aquatic Club

Pineville High School

Roma Swimming Club

Southwold Swimming Club

West Islip High School

YMCA of Saratoga Stingrays

Blue Devil Swim Club

Sand Otter Swimming

Sand Otter Swimming

Spokane Waves

New Releases

Team Manager 8.0 is coming December 15!

www.hy-tekltd.com

Download Instateam Sports Team Management for team managers APK latest version app for android devices

Instateam is a complete team management app with mobile-first design used by thousands of teams including sports teams, classrooms, churches, boy scouts, and many other groups. Team admins like sports team manager, teachers or coaches now have a consolidated mobile dashboard with all their team information right on their finger tips.

The mobile-first design of Instateam allows most of the team management functions to be done right on the mobile app without going to your desktop. With a simple and intuitive user interface with built-in automation, team admins save lots of time when creating team schedules, managing team rosters, and sending team members notifications.

What makes Instateam different from other sports teams management apps like TeamSanp or Teamapp?

Instateam is more than a sports team scheduler or activities manager; it allows real-time messaging between team members, coaches, parents and others while maintaining privacy. Coaches can not only send instant messages for important updates such as cancellations or venue changes, but also can monitors the status as to which team members have viewed or responded to their messages.

It consolidates all team management functions into one simple app.

• Team Roster: Easily Import and export team members from excel file or copy team members between teams.

• Simple signup with single signon integration with Google and Facebook. No need to create a new account and password

• Events Management: Create multiple events on multiple days or edit events in bulk with just few clicks. Create games, practices, meetings and other events for all your teams in one shot eliminating duplicate work.

• Communication via instant messaging, team messages or team surveys

• Schedule Integration: Import events from an excel file or use iCal link from external calendars to subscribe. Export team events in multiple formats such as excel, iCal, web url or integrate directly with Google calendar.

• Carpool: Offer a ride or ask a ride to an event. Easily check who needs a ride and who is driving. Coaches can add team transportation and assign team players

• Track Items: Assign tasks or items to team members with due date. Find out who need to return team equipment, submit registration or medical forms, etc, Set renewal date for forms. • Notification flags when a payment is due or a track item task is not completed.

• Payments & Dues: Receive payment from team members using Paypal and keep track of who paid when and how. Coaches or team admins can easily view which members have not paid their dues

• Attendance and player availability: Team members or parents can set their availability for upcoming events. Coaches can mark member attendance as present or absent for the events.

• Privacy: Unlike other team management apps, InstaTeam gives full control to team member to keep their information private and still be able to communicate with other team members.

• Team Fans and followers: Sports teams can promote their teams by getting fans within local community as team supporters. The fans can view all games schedule and be there to support the team.

• Event Reminders: All notifications are sent via to the mobile phone as well as via email.

There are many other features such as Live Coverage, live score reporting, photo sharing which makes InstaTeam the most desirable app for team members , coaches and team parents.

Instateam is a MUST-HAVE for busy parents with one or more kids on multiple sports teams. It instantly informs parents of any last-minute changes in team practices and games, including venue location. Parents can now coordinate with other parents to share ride, carpool, or assigning refreshments.

Download InstaTeam today and experience the most comprehensive app which consolidates all the team information for coaches, players and parents.

apkgk.com

Cyber Team Manager Windows, Mac, Linux game

Hello dear players,

Swiftly after the last, we’re following up with our newest update. It’s been nearly half a year since we began regularly updating the game, and we hope those who have been with us from the beginning can see how the game has evolved overtime. In this update we have added another 2 sets of hero skills. We’ve also populated skills for all heroes. (just populated not implemented). We also added music and hero images (and fixed the problems with displaying heroes and player images) to the game and started to work on skills (with a new 2D artist). In addition, we added the ability to level up heroes during a fight. We’ve starting working on FPS mode, making templates for the players and teams. If you’ve found any bugs feel free to leave it in a discussion forum).

More patch notes:

Added music into the game after the many reviews. The initial idea was to play your own music of choice, but we added an unobtrusive soundtrack for popular demand..

Added skills for following heroes:

Hedgehog.

First skill reduces victim's armor, max stacks = 4.

Second skill damages enemy heroes in an area.

Gives hedgehog a chance to reflect damage if attacked from behind. Damage based on 2nd spell level.

When hedgehog cast spells, he becomes the only targetable unit by enemy heroes.

Alpha update 19.06.2016

Hello dear playersб it was a very productive month for us. We’ve been added the steam cards for Cyber Team Manager and changed UI to new style, also...

Cyber Team Manager in Steam Early Access

Jan 14 2016
News

Do you ever dreamed of creating a cyber sports team? Or dreamed of when yourself play your favorite video game at the professional level? You will be...

www.moddb.com

Team Management | Manager by Design

Posted by Walter Oelwein on May 21, 2012 · Leave a Comment

When you are a manager, one of the things that you are responsible is the ongoing improvement of your team and how it operates.

Now, with that expectation set, are you tracking the “change events” that account for and assess this?

Change happens on a team and in a group all the time. In fact, it happens so often that it is easy to lose track of all of the change that is happening.

Here are sample “change events” that could constitute change on your team:

A new person or joins the team or someone leaves the team (or many people join or leave the team)

A new budget is implemented

Your organization or your team launches a strategy

There is a process improvement or process change

There is a change in scope of work

A new project starts or an old project ends

There is a new environment or element to the work environment (change in office space or new equipment)

Some of this change is instigated by the manager, and some of it is implemented by external events, either from above or by the passage of time. It’s all change, and it needs to be understood as such.

So the first task of understanding change is to track these events. If you don’t do it as a manager, perhaps someone on your team can track these events. Having these change events documented and tracked creates a better understanding of what your team is handling.

So here are some suggesting things to track for your team change:

Item number

Source of change

Change description

Initial date of learning of change

Expected positive impact

Expected negative impact

Who is responsible for delivering the change

Who is involved

Change plan location

Change implementation / assessment date

Here’s what it may look like on a spreadsheet

Item Number

Change description

Source of change

Initial Date of learning of change

Expected positive impact

Expected negative impact

Who is responsible for delivering change

Who is involved

Change plan location

Change implementation / assessment date

1

Marci leaves

Marci

6/1/2011

Opportunity to identify emerging team needs and hire to it

Lose Marci’s skill set

Manager hiring

Manager, HR, Team Members

Hiring process site

7/1/2011 (replacement hired) 12/1/2011 (up to speed)

2

New quality assurance program

Manager initiated

3/1/2010 (kick off of implementation)

Improved quality

Resistance/inertia of prior system, less efficiency

Alex

All team and partner teams

Team site : projects

12/1/2011 (program implemented) 3/1/2011 (assess quality)

3

Read more

Posted by Walter Oelwein on May 14, 2012 · Leave a Comment

In my previous article, I describe the importance of not attacking a change agent, but instead taking steps to manage the change, not the change agent. Many managers receive “feedback” that is resistance to change, and then turn around and give that feedback to the change agents, implying that the manager doesn’t actually want the change agent to instigate the change.

The first five steps to this were: 1. Listen 2. Document the issue 3. Track the issues. 4. Delay in responding to them 5. Look at the issues as a team.

Today, I provide tips on what to do next:

6. Communicate your findings – the more targeted the better

You typically know the source of the resistance/complaint. You tracked it, right? Now you can respond directly to that person. Explain what you did (discussed it as a team) and what you plan to do (keep going with the change, most likely). I am not a fan of communicating broadly the list of concerns and the responses, because it is somewhat akin to public feedback. By communicating broadly, you are trying to adjust the thinking for a specific person via communicating with a broad group. This creates unintended consequence of changing the broad group’s thinking when it isn’t necessarily a problem. It’s better to circle back to the person who expressed the concern in the first place. If there is a network of people who believe the same thing, that person then gets to address the results.

Read more

Posted by Walter Oelwein on May 7, 2012 · 2 Comments

Many managers are in the position of instigating and overseeing change on the team, with the intent that this change improves how things are done and obtains better results.

But managers can quickly fall into the trap of resisting the change they instigated by reacting negatively to the ramifications of change, and seeking to eliminate all resistances (a.k.a., complaints) to the change.

They do this by treating incoming complaints of the change agent as a performance feedback opportunity to the change agent. This implies that the change can occur and without resistance and essentially undermines the change effort. This is a wrong assumption – it’s like assuming that there is no resistance when you start a car and move forward.

So here’s what to do when someone on your team resists change:

1. Listen

Allow the person to hear out the person’s issues with the change. The only action is to listen to the issues or complaints that the person has. Instead of responding to the issue, listen to the issue. Say, “Thank you for expressing your concerns.” Add some empathy, “I understand that this can be difficult.”

2. Track the concerns

To prove that you are listening, actually write down the concerns. Write them down in front of the person expressing them. Tell them that you are writing them down. Say, “I appreciate your taking the time to express these concerns. I’m going to make sure I have your concerns tracked, is that O.K.?”

3. Put the concerns in a central location

You probably aren’t the only one receiving complaints. Upon the first complaint, this is your clue that there may be more. Find a place for others on your team to document them. Put them in the same place.

Read more

Posted by Walter Oelwein on January 16, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Today I discuss a key element to managing well: Knowing what your team members are supposed to do.

This is part of a continuing series that explores the tenets of Management Design, the field this blog pioneers. Management Design is a response to the poorly performing existing designs that are currently used in creating managers. These current designs describe how managers tend to be created by accident or anointment, rather than by design.

Today’s tenet: If you can’t break down a job into its tasks and workflows, find someone who can.

Many managers are expected to manage a team of people, but really don’t have the clarity as to what the team members are expected to do. Managers often have a sense of what their customers want, and what some examples of things the team produces, or metrics that indicate success (such as sales).

But these are, for the most part, results or indicators of what the team does, not what the team does. The manager should have an understanding of what the component tasks are for the team members’ roles, and when added up, equals the thing that is produced, which then generate the metrics or impressions of success of the team.

Read more

Posted by Walter Oelwein on August 15, 2011 · 1 Comment

My recent articles discuss how all-team meetings (or “group meetings” or “all-hands meetings”) are essentially risky endeavors for group leaders (here and here). So here are some tips on how to mitigate the risks:

1. Don’t make the meetings mandatory

If you have to make a meeting mandatory, it is a sign that something is not compelling about your meeting. Call meetings that people want to attend. As a corollary to this, try not to have your lower level management team spend time in their team meetings talking about why it is mandatory and why people need to attend. Instead, they should talk about what team members are expected to get out of the (preferably) non-mandatory meeting. Read on for what that might be. . .

People want to hear what the strategy is. The strategy should be stated, and discussed. When getting everyone together, the main objective should be getting the full team on board to understand the group or company strategy. Anything other than the strategy is, to a certain degree, specific execution, and probably isn’t appropriate at the “all-group” or “all-hands” meeting level.

3. Review the key performance indicators, and performance against these

As part of the strategy, look at your key performance indicators, and show that this is what the management team is looking at. Avoid showing stress at the metrics that are lower than target. Instead, discuss how you are going to support improving not only the underperforming metrics, but further accelerate the metrics that are above target.

4. Stop there.

This makes the all-team meeting short and sweet. It shows level that the layer of management running the meeting the strategic level at which they are working. If there isn’t much content beyond looking at the strategy and the key performance indicators, then the meeting can be short and sweet. Your greater team will thank you that you haven’t taken more time out of their work.

5. Don’t mistake “Q&A” with “interactive”

Many managers leading all-hands meetings say that they want the session to be “interactive.” This often means that there is a question an answer session after the presentation. This isn’t interactive, since the vast majority of the attendees aren’t interacting during the Q&A session. It’s a Q&A session, not interactivity. Meeting leaders can budget time in for Q&A, but know that it doesn’t create the impression of openness and interactivity to leadership. Instead, it shows that leadership is implying that their interactions with the larger group is limited to all-team meeting Q&A sessions.

6. Have the team work together to solve a problem or generate ideas

Many managers want their all-team meetings to be “interactive.” They also want the members of the larger team to “get to know each other.” Many times they’ll have post-meeting receptions, or require that people introduce each other during the all-team meeting. These actions rarely create lasting connections.

Instead, here is a way to create interactivity that is more meaningful:

Break up the larger session into groups of 4-6 people. Now issue a challenge with a time limit – what can we do to better execute this strategy? Improve this key performance indicator? Improve the work environment? What areas are we not investing in, but you think we should?

In short, find a problem that the leadership team wants solved, and then put the larger team to work to solve it. Have the teams document the results, and have them delivered to the meeting leaders. The leaders (or the groups) can then share them back to the larger group or a few other groups.

The meeting leaders now have tons of ideas related to their strategic concerns, and with tons of problem-solving brainpower. And it was interactive, work related and a more meaningful use of time. I would consider this a little bit better than introducing each other or having a post-meeting party.

OK, follow these tips for all-hands meetings, and you’ve increased the chances that the all-team meeting is useful, relevant and meaningful to the attendees, and the meetings will probably be a lot shorter and cost less. Not bad!

Related articles:

Do your all-team meetings make your team cringe?

Reasons many employees dread all-team meetings

If you’re the manager, it’s your job not to act surprised

Nine simple tips to make meetings more compelling

More reasons mandatory meetings are bad for you and bad for your team

Making it a mandatory meeting sabotages the meeting

More reasons mandatory meetings are bad for you and bad for your team

The first step to getting out of the mandatory meeting cycle: Don’t call meetings if you were planning one-way communication

Managers behaving badly: Training the team not to report bad news

What to do when you see a status or metric as “Red”

Posted by Walter Oelwein on June 27, 2011 · Leave a Comment

In my previous article, I provided four uses for how a manager can use a team strategy document (example here). Today, I provide four more! Today, I focus on the internal uses – within your team — of the team strategy document.

1. Use it as a basis for improving processes, workflows and operational innovation

When you have a team strategy document, it allows you to better understand what the team is trying to achieve. With this, now you can start looking at your team processes and workflows. It also affords the opportunity for you and the team to discuss areas of innovation and opportunity that your team can perform to better achieve the goals. With a strategy in place, you and your team are less likely to meander in the status quo and more likely to strive toward a higher level of performance.

2. Use it as a guideline for strategically placing work assignments and identifying gaps in team capability

The team strategy document identifies who is on your team. You can also add some biographical and work interest info about each member. For example: Walter – management consultant, performance improvement, innovative instructional design. With this info, you can look at the strategy, and think about the job roles of the people on your team, and identify the strategic placement of where the people on your team perform their job. If you have someone who is outgoing, and makes excellent connections with people on their first meeting, and if you have as strategic need to make new connections outside your team, perhaps you should put that person on the task of developing new relationships. Read more

Posted by Walter Oelwein on June 20, 2011 · 1 Comment

In my previous article, I describe a practical way to create a team strategy document using the input of the team. I recommend the team strategy document (example here) have the following elements:

–The team name

–Who is on the team

–What the team is trying to accomplish/what it produces

–Guiding principles and expectations

–Metrics that rate the productivity and quality of the team

–Business metrics that the team could affect

–The plan for how to meet the metrics that rate the productivity of the team

Now that you have the document, here’s what you do with it. In today’s post, I’ll focus on the external uses:

1. Use it as a basis to share with your partner teams and customers

No team works in a vacuum, so if you are armed with a strategy, you can share your strategy with the teams you need to work with to be successful, either the partner teams you receive work from and hand off to, or customers that you provide deliverables to. Of course you need to customize it for the team you’re meeting with. Sharing your team strategy will help your partner teams understand what your priorities are, what you can do to help them, and what your team capabilities are.

2. Use it as a basis for prioritizing work

Now that you have the team strategy in place, any work that comes or opportunities that present themselves should somehow fit within that strategy. Evaluate the opportunities against the strategy, as well as the reactive or legacy work that comes in. Many times a meeting invitation comes in where team members with legacy relationships naturally seem to require that they be involved. So the team member feels compelled to attend the meeting, even if it has nothing to do with the team strategy. As a manager, you have the ability to say, “No, you don’t have to attend that meeting and take on action items from it because I need you to work on the areas that are our team priorities.” It gives you a basis to keep your team focused on the priorities that you and your team agreed to.

Read more

Posted by Walter Oelwein on June 13, 2011 · Leave a Comment

In my previous post, I discussed the expectations that any team manager should have some sort of team strategy document. This is a key deliverable of any manager. OK, so how do you create one?

The operative word in the term “Team Strategy Document” is the word “Team.” Use your team to create the team strategy document. The manager who doesn’t use the team will create a manager strategy document, which will reflect the manager’s view of the world, and not the team. The team will ignore it, and therefore it is not a team strategy document.

So here’s how you do it:

1. Have a team meeting with the objective of creating a team strategy document

Don’t do the usual agenda items like updates. Those are likely boring anyway. This meeting should be focused on the team strategy document, and the objective is to have enough information to create a document.

2. Set up the meeting to be collaborative and brainstorming

Many team meetings end up being one person (perhaps the manager?) giving various status updates, news from above. This meeting needs to be different. It needs to require input from everyone on the team, even the quiet ones and the ones who possibly think team meetings are useless. Say, “In today’s meeting, I’m going to ask all of you to provide your input. This is an opportunity to think creatively and to get our ideas out. I welcome all ideas, and later we will hone it down and consolidate.”

In addition, find some tools to allow everyone on the team to provide input. If you’re serious about getting input from the entire team, do not just stand in front of the white board and ask people to shout suggestions during brainstorming. Instead, I suggest getting a pen and paper or Post-It notes in each person’s hand. Bring these tools to the meeting.

Read more

Posted by Walter Oelwein on June 6, 2011 · 3 Comments

In my prior post, I discussed the need for team managers to produce deliverables that contribute to adding up to managing. Individual contributors are used to delivering specific items, but when they become mangers, a new manager can believe that there is no longer a need to produce deliverables. However, this is not true! A manager for any team should have at least one deliverable: That is a team strategy document.

It doesn’t matter what team you lead, if the team does not have a team strategy document, then it is the manager’s responsibility to create one. At the minimum, having a team strategy document is better than not having a team strategy document. Once a team manager has created a team strategy document, the manager has “delivered” something that is designed to increase the performance of the team. It is a step in the right direction, and a leading indicator of success. Not having a strategy document is a leading indicator of failure.

What is on a team strategy document? It can vary because there are so many teams out there, and so many ways to define strategy. But there should be some sort of the following elements on it:

The team name

Who is on the team

What the team is trying to accomplish/what it produces

Guiding principles and expectations

Metrics that rate the productivity and quality of the team

Business metrics that the team could affect

The plan for how to meet the metrics that rate the productivity of the team

Read more

Posted by Walter Oelwein on May 30, 2011 · 2 Comments

In my prior article, I describe the dynamic of promoting a top individual contributor to management as a form of reward, only for it to turn into punishment. Yet this is not inevitable. You can find top individual contributors who become top managers. After all, if your top performer was able to learn one series of complex skills as an individual contributor, it stands to reason that the top performer is able to learn a second series of complex skills as a manager.

However, what are those skills? In individual contributor roles, people are expected to deliver something, and this is what they get used to as good work: “If I produce X, at quality Y, and in time frame Z, then I’ve done a good job.”

It’s a set of deliverables that tend to be pretty well defined.

Now the individual contributor becomes a manager with a team of three. The dynamic is suddenly, “Now there is four of me, and now my team needs to produce 4x at quality Y and in time-frame Z.

What the manager needs to produce is now ambiguous: Do you help produce all that stuff? If one person on the team is a lower performer, do I have to double my efforts and produce myself the gap in productivity? Do I stop producing individual stuff and monitor the work of the lower performers, risking lowering the productivity of the team?

The natural instinct for a new manager is to keep doing the individual contributor work, and hope that others will do as well. The problem is that the management tasks become a distraction from that individual work, and you get both an unmanaged team and a distracted, formerly high performing individual contributor. It becomes a mess where formerly rational employees become yelling managers and, in general, manage from a deficit.

So here’s a way to present to the manager what they have to do in a way that makes sense to an Individual Contributor: Management is a series of deliverables. They are different deliverables from the work done as individual contributor, but deliverables specific to being a manager.